The 2017 Infrastructure Report Card was recently released by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a cursory review leaves me to wonder, who is editing this thing? Is anyone looking critically at making sure investment recommendations are worthwhile and in the public interest? Much of our nation’s infrastructure was built during the 1930s New Deal as part of a grand vision to build dams, roads and bridges. While those federal investments are credited at least with bringing the nation out of the Depression, some of those investments have caused unacceptable environmental damages, like the dams that block migrating salmon. Infrastructure today needs a new vision that focuses on building a more sustainable future, like high speed rail, functional mass transit and renewable energy. Unfortunately, the ASCE is stuck in the 20th century as it evaluates the nation’s infrastructure.

“ASCE and its members are dedicated to ensuring a sustainable future in which human society has the capacity and opportunity to maintain and improve its quality of life indefinitely, without degrading the quantity, quality or the availability of natural, economic and social resources.”

Obviously, the statement is a legitimate and encompasses many of the basic components of sustainability. However, as many growth-oriented organizations ignore, there is no consideration of what specific physical and biologic needs and how much of them are essential to “maintain and improve its quality of life indefinitely.”

The ASCE uses its Report Card to quantify how much it would cost to repair existing system or expand them, but there is no questioning of whether all of the existing infrastructure systems are actually providing public value or even have the potential of being sustainable. The overarching philosophy is to maintain these systems without looking beyond them to fundamental changes in how the systems work or don’t work in providing their intended benefit, which is not corporate profits.

This is especially true of the Inland Waterways System (IWS), which is the most subsidized commodity transport system in the U.S. and a system that has highly damaged one of the most diverse, productive and rare habitats that exists – rivers and floodplains.

There is a fundamental problem with this ASCE Report Card regarding the IWS, which is strongly based on the U.S.… Read the rest

After a century of recklessly damaging our rivers — far too often for little public benefit, one would hope that we would have learned some lessons. One of them should be that we would make it easier to restore our rivers than it is to further damage them. The committee structures intended to provide specific recommendations on river management that our lawmakers enacted, unfortunately, have produced the opposite result.

In 1986 Congress gave the barge industry special interests a committee that, by its design, can easily agree on industry-favorable recommendations for further development of barge navigation. In contrast, river restoration advocates were saddled with a conflict-ridden, oversized committee that by its design is unlikely to agree on river restoration recommendations of any significance.

Congress has the ability to create committees and boards that are tasked with providing stakeholder recommendations and guidance to government agencies to help the agencies perform their duties. This article will compare two of those entities that were created to provide recommendations and guidance to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) regarding the Corps management of our rivers.

Introduction

The Inland Waterways System (IWS) is an industrialized version of what were once America’s natural major rivers. Congress authorized and funded massive alterations of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, Columbia, and other major rivers to accommodate nine-foot draft barges to be pushed up and down our rivers, typically by channelizing and/or damming the rivers. There are about 12,000 official miles within the IWS, all of the natural portions severely degraded by the alterations. The map in Figure 1 below shows the rivers and coastal areas that are a part of the IWS in blue lines and the ports on the rivers in yellow dots.

Figure 1: Coastal and Inland Waterway System

Since the vast majority of commodities transported on the IWS are shipped on the Upper Mississippi River (UMR), Illinois River, Ohio River and/or Lower Mississippi River, I will limit all detailed discussions on those four rivers. Table 1 below compares barge traffic volumes, appropriations and estimated Inland Waterways Trust Fund receipts for 2014 on those segments of the IWS. This table allows us to dig deeper into the cost and use of each of these segments of the IWS so that we can better evaluate the use of taxpayer dollars and weigh the benefits to society of the IWS, the industries it serves, and the materials it transports.… Read the rest

2014 has been a very good year for the most subsidized mode of freight transport in the U.S. – river barges. Phase 1 of their bailout was initiated in the 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) with a fleecing of the taxpayers for most of the barge industry’s remaining obligation to fund the money pit called the Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River – $525 million. Maybe you felt the hand pulling the money from your wallet on June 10, 2014.

The path to astronomical welfare levels for the barges has been long and costly.… Read the rest

For those not familiar with the Water Resources Development Act, it is the legislation that authorizes the Corps of Engineers’ work on the major rivers of our nation. WRDAs have been enacted since 1974 and were the evolution of what was called the River and Harbor Acts that were enacted between 1824 and 1970. Both of these legislations have had an immense impact upon the health of our rivers, primarily in a negative way, for the almost exclusive purpose of exploiting them for economic development. It was not until the 1986 WRDA that there was any significant environmental concern through restoration efforts incorporated into the Corps mission.

What is WRDA

WRDA authorizes studies and projects within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) primary mission areas: 1) commercial navigation; 2) flood risk management; and 3) aquatic ecosystem restoration. The projects that are authorized, historically through an earmarking process, include locks, dams, levees, beach sand replenishment, river island building and channel dredging. WRDA can also affect, through the Corps permitting process, public and private structures and permitting process, public and private structures and infrastructure near, over, or under rivers.

In June 2014 Congress overwhelmingly passed the 2014 WRDA, which the President quickly signed into law. We talked about this WRDA in previous articles here and here last year. Most environmental and tax watchdog groups believe it is the worst WRDA ever. Business interests appear to love it. Not a surprise since environmental and tax watchdog groups were completely shut out of its drafting. So, how does the 2014 WRDA compare with the last WRDA Congress produced in 2007?

In spring 2008 I drafted an article reviewing the 2007 WRDA that was never printed but provides a snap shot of what I thought of that last WRDA. The articles opening paragraph is below:

The 2007 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), at $23 billion, is a strong signal of the serious problems with the process, both within the Corps of Engineers and Congress. The bill increases the backlog to well over 1000 projects estimated to cost nearly $80 billion that could take up to 40 years to clear at an annual construction appropriation level of $2 to $2.5 billion.… Read the rest

Special interest politics and the abuse of power by politicians surprise no one. However, in the interest of a diligent citizenry, we have three recent examples for your entertainment that put facts and faces to this kind of behavior; all of which are affecting the nation’s dying rivers and our nation’s bank accounts.

(1) The Missouri River is arguably the most messed up river in the country. Solely for the benefit a small group of beneficiaries – barge owners and agribusinesses along the river – we have spent 100 years and about $10 billion shortening, straight-jacketing and abusing the river to the point it does not function or even look like a natural river any more.… Read the rest